The Impact Of Worship Series

The Impact of Worship

I’m thankful for the staff we have at PBC. Our church secretary, Barb, has really done a super job with our weekly bulletin, don’t you think? On the rare occasion that we have a typo, it’s usually my fault for not catching it when I proof it. Other churches are not as fortunate as we are when it comes to their bulletins. These are actual announcements that I’ve compiled from churches around the country:

Ushers will eat latecomers.

Miss Charlene Mason sang “I Will Not Pass This Way Again,” giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a good chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.

Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.

Don’t let worry kill you. Let the Church help.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.

A missionary from Africa named Bertha Belch is speaking at Calvary Memorial in Racine. Come tonight and hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.

These “bulletin bloopers” are funny ­ and they show the importance of words. Language is so powerful, isn’t it? A misplaced letter or word can make us laugh or make us cry. Words can communicate humor or holiness, sorrow or singing. As we continue in our series on worship from the Book of Psalms, we’ve focused on some pretty weighty words. From Psalm 95 we learned that biblical worship involves both Rejoicing and Reverence and is always followed by a Response. Additionally, as we discovered last week from Psalm 96, true worship is never boring when we Exalt His Name, Extend His Kingdom, Express His Greatness and Expect His Coming. This morning, as we take a look at Psalm 145, we will see that worship is designed to radically impact our very lives.

Background

Before we jump into the text, I want to give you some background.

1. This Psalm is an alphabetical acrostic. What this means is that David begins each verse with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Sometimes preachers are made fun of for their acrostics or alliteration ­ actually, we’re just trying to be like David! If you’ve ever tried to write poetry, you know that it takes a lot of thought and attention to detail to express what is on your heart. I can’t imagine how long this took David to do but I’m sure he tackled it with vigor. By the way, these kind of literary devices enable the listener or reader to remember the content a bit more easily. That’s the goal when I use four words that begin with “e” or why we designed our church vision statement using the acrostic IMPACT. If you can remember that one word, it should trigger your mind to think of Instruction, Ministry, Prayer, Adoration, Caring, and Telling. When somebody asks what PBC is all about, you can tell them when you think about the word IMPACT.

I should mention that David’s attempt to use all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet didn’t quite work out ­ there’s one missing. Maybe he did it on purpose so that we don’t focus so much on the structure that we miss the content, or maybe he just couldn’t find an appropriate word that started with that letter. That takes some pressure off me when I can’t make that last point of a sermon start with the letter “X”!

2. This psalm could be considered the “new song” of Psalm 96:1. As we learned last week, we are to break out into fresh expressions of God’s creative beauty and awesome character: “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.” This psalm does that. It’s bright and dazzling in its structure and message.

3. This is really David’s crown jewel of praise. This is the last psalm that has David’s name associated with it and the title, “A psalm of praise” is used only of this one. This holy hymn is characterized by praise ­ not thanksgiving or even prayer. It’s set apart for a specific purpose, much like Psalm 86 is referred to as “A prayer of David.” It is magnificent in its beauty and almost breathtaking in its grandeur.

4. This psalm has a special blessing associated with it. According to the ancient Israelites, who recited this psalm twice in the morning and once in the evening, a person who sang this psalm out loud three different times during the day would be “happy.” Perhaps we should follow this same suggestion today. I don’t doubt that we’d become much more joyful if we read this psalm three times a day for a month. Any takers?